(WKYT) – As heavy rainfall raises flooding concerns across the Ohio Valley, the Kentucky Geological Survey is working on a project to anticipate another weather-related hazard in the region: landslides.
Landslides are a mass movement of earth down a slope and are common in hilly terrain like eastern Kentucky.
The factors behind them can be complex, according to geologist Matt Crawford.
“There’s all kinds of causes of landslides, so it can be underlying causes like slope angle, soil type, but then we sort of separate that out from triggers, so rainfall is the primary trigger that initiates landslides in Kentucky,” Crawford said.
To better understand landslides, the Kentucky Geological Survey has installed monitoring stations across eastern Kentucky to measure soil and rainfall variables.
“That matters for landslides because we can get a picture of what rainfall is doing to the soil and what the soil moisture does after rainfall that can contribute to landslides,” Crawford said. “So there’s kind of like stages of work here: first thing is like we just need an overall picture of what’s going on in these wooded steep slopes as far as soil moisture behavior.”
The Kentucky Geological Survey has already begun work on a landslide susceptibility map for eastern Kentucky. Crawford said 13 counties are finished and available to the public, with plans to expand the project statewide.